Wedding Crashers filmmaker David Dobkin is in talks to take charge of a movie biopic based on the life of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner. Movie studio executives at Warner Bros. have been developing the currently-untitled project since 2009 and have now asked Dobkin to direct, according to Variety.
The lead role has yet to be cast, but if Hefner has his way, Iron Man star Robert Downey Jr. will take on the part.
The Queen scribe Peter Morgan is writing the script and Jerry Weintraub is producing.

Warner Bros. movie executives initially scrapped plans for the Arthur &amp; Lancelot project in January (12) due to budget concerns, but they are now looking at reviving the film with the Phone Booth star as King Arthur's most trusted knight.
The Killing actor Joel Kinnaman had previously been cast in the role, opposite Kit Harrington.
David Dobkin had been due to direct that project and he is expected to remain in charge of the new film.
Arthur &amp; Lancelot isn't the only Warner Bros. movie focused on the King Arthur era - filmmakers Guy Ritchie and Bryan Singer are also working on their own adaptations.

Less than two months after it was shelved by Warner Bros. over budgetary concerns, Arthur and Lancelot is back on, and it's close to nabbing a resurgent actor for its cast. According to Variety, Colin Farrell, whose career has been revitalized in recent years thanks to stellar turns in films like In Bruges, is in talks to star in David Dobkin's revisionist take on the Arthurian legend.
Kit Harington and Joel Kinniman had previously been slated to play King Arthur and Sir Lancelot, respectively, but dropped out of the project when the project was halted over those always dubious "scheduling conflicts." The "conflict" likely being that Warner Bros. was hesitant to "schedule" a hugely expensive period piece starring Kit Harington and Joel Kinniman and directed by the guy behind Wedding Crashers and The Change-Up.
Source: Variety

The nascent genre of revisionist fairy tales was dealt a blow today when two of its high-profile upcoming releases, Jack the Giant Killer and Arthur &amp; Lancelot, both of which are in development at Warner Bros., were hit with major delays, THR reports. Bryan Singer's fantasy epic Jack the Giant Killer, starring Ewan McGregor, saw its release date moved from June 15 of this year to March 22, 2013 -- a whopping nine-month shift. The news was considerably more dire for Arthur &amp; Lancelot, David Dobkin's new take on the Arthurian legend, starring Kit Harington and Joel Kinnaman. That film was moved from March 15, 2013, to never. The project is now in turnaround, as Warner Bros. executives scramble to figure out how a big-budget period fantasy starring Kit Harington and Joel Kinnaman was ever greenlit in the first place.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Normally, the method behind the madness of Under the Radar is to examine the week’s new theatrical releases and find among the cast listings a young actor or actress whose stock seems to be rapidly climbing. We often use that actor/actress’ back catalogue of films to illustrate their meteoric rise and, depending on your viewing regimen, you may or may not agree with the accuracy of their up-and-coming status. But when one particular star shows up in two huge releases in the span of single week, they are kind of making their own case—or at least preliminary arguments.
Such is the case with this week’s star: Joel Kinnaman. Within a week's span, the actor will be appearing in both The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Darkest Hour. Here are a few things you probably didn’t know about Joel:
Dual Citizenship
David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which opens on Wednesday, is an adaptation of a novel by Swedish author Stieg Larsson; a previous cinematic incarnation was produced in the novel’s native Sweden in 2009. To call Fincher’s version a remake of the 2009 film would be inaccurate—several differences, mined from the original text, exist between the two versions. Given that he is appearing in an American adaptation of a Swedish novel, it seems altogether fitting that Kinnaman would have dual citizenship between the two countries. Joel’s mother is Swedish while his father is American so the reason for the dual citizenship seems pretty clear.
The Killing
If you think Mad Men is the only worthwhile show on AMC, you are sorely mistaken. The network has recently given us the intense, powerful, and altogether fascinating crime drama The Killing. Much like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, , The Killing begins with the search for a missing girl. The series is beautifully shot, clever in its skirting of procedural cop show conventions, and fantastically preformed. Joel Kinnaman plays police officer Stephen Holder, one of two investigators heading up the case. Kinnaman performs the part with a certain crassness, an in-your-face bravado that ultimately proves to be a carefully crafted tool in his detective arsenal. The relationship between he and his partner, played by Mireille Enos, is the backbone of the series.
Arthur and Lancelot
One the case of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is solved and the battle with the energy-devouring aliens of The Darkest Hour is finished, Joel will have a far more epic task before him. Kinnaman is set to star in director David Dobkin’s Arthur and Lancelot. Kinnaman will be portraying Sir Lancelot, the famous knight serving on the court of the legendary King Arthur; the latter to be played by Game of Throne’s Kit Harington. This fantasy adventure will be an interesting departure for Dobkin, as he has up to now only directed comedies such as Wedding Crashers and Fred Claus. However elements of period action adventure did find their way into his Shanghai Knights. I’m sure with the stars of two hugely successful TV shows headlining, both of whom are tremendous actors in their own right, Arthur and Lancelot will excel.
Original Invisible
In 2007, David S. Goyer directed a supernatural teen thriller called The Invisible. The film told the story of a high school student who is brutally attacked and left for dead. The next day, he discovers that no one can see him; calling into serious question whether he actually survived the attack. You may have missed the film in theaters…and in video stores…and on TV, but the film made a decent amount of bank at the box office. What you may not know is that The Invisible is a remake of a 2002 Swedish film that featured among its cast, you guessed it, Joel Kinnaman.
Safe House
The very next film on Kinnaman’s slate is Safe House from director Daniel Espinosa. The film centers around a young CIA agent looking after a fugitive at an agency safe house; a place that ends up coming under siege. It certainly seems as if Kinnaman is moving up in the film world. He is going from playing a small part in the latest David Fincher film, no small accomplishment, to costarring in a big-budget sci-fi actioner, to being billed in Safe House just under the likes of Ryan Reynolds, Denzel Washington, Vera Farmiga, and Brendan Gleeson. If the old maxim is true, about being judged by the company one keeps, I’d say Joel is doing pretty well.

Oscar winner Marion Cotillard has reportedly been offered a key role in the 2013 big-screen update/adaptation Arthur &amp; Lancelot.
The French actress would play Morgana, King Arthur's (to be played by Game of Thrones' Kit Harington) sorceress half-sister. Wedding Crashers filmmaker David Dobkin is directing the action-adventure film, which will also feature The Killing costar Joel Kinnaman as Lancelot.
Cotillard, who won Best Actress for her performance in La Vie en Rose, most recently appeared in Steven Soderbergh's Contagion.
Source: Vulture
Click on the image below to see more photos of Marion Cotillard!

The 2011 summer movie season may have been among the weakest ever, but it yielded more than its share of head-scratchers. Behold, this summer's WTF Award Winners:
Most Surprising Hit: The Smurfs
Few films not directed by Michael Bay can ride a 22% Rotten Tomatoes score into an opening weekend and expect to make a dent at the box office, much less ones based on an ‘80s pop-culture relic. Nothing packs a theater like satanic, anti-Semitic communists.
Most Surprising Flop: The Change-Up
One would have thought The Change-Up’s pedigree – two funny and likable stars (Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds), the director of Wedding Crashers, and the writers of The Hangover – alone could at least deliver a solid opening weekend, the film’s manifest suckage notwithstanding. Relentless anal fixation just isn't the box-office draw it used to be.
Award for Achievement in the Field of Cognitive Dissonance: Jeff Robinov
Confronted with the unmitigated failure of Green Lantern, the Warner Bros. exec nonetheless vowed to press on with a sequel, saying that “to go forward we need to make it a little edgier and darker with more emphasis on action.” Good luck with that.
Best Excuse to Cheer Our Species’ Destruction: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
So mesmerizing was Andy Serkis’ motion-capture virtuosity as the simian Che Guevara in Rupert Wyatt’s blockbuster reboot that it was easy to ignore what a damning portrait the film paints of us humans, and the near-sadistic glee with which it depicts our demise. Masochism has never been so exhilarating.
Best Excuse to Hope for Our Species’ Destruction: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Global consumers, mired in an unprecedented economic malaise, still saw fit to squander their hard-earned wages on the bloated fourth Pirates entry, making it the second mediocre Johnny Depp film in as many years to gross over a billion dollars worldwide. With such collective bad taste, perhaps ape tyranny is the fate we deserve.
Most Dubious Milestone: Cars 2
Pixar’s much-maligned sequel became the first film in the studio’s gloriously acclaimed history to be certified Rotten. On the bright side, it is by far the best-reviewed Larry the Cable Guy vehicle to date.
Most Audacious Alt-History Sequence: Transformers: Dark of the Moon
The third Transformers entry spiced up its plot with some inventive revisionist history, only to take the concept too far by tastelessly insinuating that the Decepticons were to blame for the Chernobyl tragedy. Let’s just be thankful that the Bumblebee-caused-9/11 subplot was left on the cutting room floor.
Best A-List Coronation That Wasn’t: Ryan Reynolds
This was supposed to be the summer in which Reynolds was finally crowned a superstar, confirming what Hollywood has asserted, without any evidence to support it, for years now. Instead, People’s "Sexiest Man Alive" churned out two embarrassing flops, Green Lantern and The Change-Up. Weak material bears some of the blame, but a movie star – a real star, not a paper one – transcends weak material. (See: Smith, Will).
WTF Performer of the Summer: Andy Serkis
As Ceasar, the ape liberator of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Serkis (and his visual effects technicians) achieved a filmmaking breakthrough, creating the first CGI mo-cap character with more depth and empathy than his human counterparts. He may not receive the Oscar nomination his supporters covet, but he’s a lock to sweep the PETA Awards.
WTF Film of the Summer: Tree of Life
Gorgeous and inscrutable, Terrence Malick’s existential opus confounded and polarized audiences, prompting at least one theater to post this infamous “no refunds” disclaimer. While it lacks the exquisite grotesqueries of WTF favorite Lars von Trier’s work, it is nonetheless a cinematic mind-f*ck of the highest order.

The first five minutes of The Change-Up—a horrifying look into the world of late-night baby care complete with one of the more grotesque poop-to-face shots ever captured on film—sums up the movie's bait-and-switch. In most comedies this scene would be the first step towards a descent into hell that only Paul Blart: Mall Cop and Adam Sandler are capable of realizing. In The Change-Up it's a sequence that sets the bar as low as artistically possible so stars Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds can obliterate expectations with equally raunchy shocking and hilarious comedic stylings. Simply put The Change-Up is the funniest movie of the year.
Bateman plays Dave Lockwood a run-of-the-mill lawyer who works too hard juggles his parenting duties and struggles to find time to tell his wife he loves her. Dave's best friend Mitch (Reynolds) couldn't be more of the opposite—sleeping all day and spending his conscious hours wooing sexual partners while stoned out of his mind. The two are polar opposites making them the perfect candidates for a little bit of switcheroo magic. One particularly devastating night of alcohol and lamenting life's woes ends with the duo taking a leak into a magical fountain (go with it). Fate of course intervenes and when Dave and Mitch wake up they find themselves trapped in the one another's bodies.
There's no denying The Change-Up follows the Freaky Friday formula—but that's not a fault. The logic is already established giving Bateman Reynolds and director David Dobkin (Wedding Crashers) freedom to jump right into the crass humor hook. Bateman who's becoming a go-to straight man in Hollywood finds a refreshing opportunity in inhabiting Reynold's Mitch. The character's lack of self-censorship opens the floodgates for Bateman to poetically surface some of the English language's more horrendous sentences. A slang dictionary may be required to understand what bizarre body part synonyms are being dropped at rapid pace in this movie. Whether you comprehended them or not when they come out of Bateman's mouth they're priceless.
Same goes for Reynolds who escapes the box of fast-talking womanizer to play the uncomfortable family man. Judging an actor's versatility on a scene in which he's unwillingly placed at the center of a "lorno" (read: low-budget soft core pornography) may seem twisted but Reynolds sells it and makes it perfectly agonizing. Even obvious scenarios like "uh oh Dave's going to have to cheat on his wife in Mitch's body!" are twisted once twice three times over to pull the rug from under you.
The biggest surprise of The Change-Up is the movie's heart. Pummeling an audience with jokes is one thing but to sell genuine relationships underneath it makes it satisfying. The wavering friendship between the two lead knuckleheads is tangible and keeps an impossible plot device grounded while Leslie Mann (Knocked Up Funny People) as Dave's wife Jamie has her fair share of tender moments (as well as devilish laughs—there's a reason her husband Judd Apatow keeps casting her). In a movie that's constructed by textbook rules to have an ending that resonates with any sort of emotion is as surprising as watching a grown man toss a baby down next to a set of steak knives. Which coincidentally also happens in the movie.
In today's world where anything goes it's hard to whip up slapstick and one-liners that feel edgy and that leave your jaw on the floor. That's how The Change-Up hits—and it hits hard.

Steven Soderbergh is in early talks to direct the film adaptation of ‘60s TV series The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Warner Bros. has been working on the project since the ‘90s, says the Risky Business blog, which adds that Scott Z. Burns, who wrote Soderbergh's The Informant and his upcoming medical thriller Contagion, is negotiating to come aboard as writer.
Most recently, U.N.C.L.E. looked like it would come together with a script by Max Borenstein and with David Dobkin directing.
According to BIZ, the Borenstein script was considered strong by Warners, but Dobkin is now moving to the role of producer, along with John Davis, and Burns will write a new script.
James Bond author Ian Fleming was a creator of the original NBC show, which focused on the adventures of American and Russian members of a secret agency.
Per BIZ, Soderbergh will aim to shoot U.N.C.L.E. at the end of next year.
Source: Hollywood Wiretap

Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have the magic touch. And by magic touch I mean they have written several very funny movies and its no wonder a studio hired them to rework a pretty solid sounding premise. Neighborhood Watch was originally written by Jared Stern and went through the motions of being attached to one person or another (from everyone like Wedding Crashers’ David Dobkin to Will Ferrell) before finding itself in the laps of Rogen and Goldberg.
The story follows a group of middle aged men in a neighborhood who create the community watch program as an excuse to hang out. But then things get serious when they uncover a world domination plot by a sinister group of people and one would imagine they take matters into their own hands because the second half of a movie that is “Let me call the cops. Hey cops, you need to arrest these people. Ok, thanks, you too! Bye.” is not the best second act.
Comedies are subjective to taste. But we can all agree that Rogen’s movies are at least well written, right? I mean, he and Goldberg have written Superbad, Pineapple Express, and the upcoming Green Hornet. Even if you don’t think they’re funny, they’re at least well written. Agree with me on that at least. Come on, meet me halfway. Ok, how about Rogen’s laugh. That’s funny. Good, glad we can all agree on that.
Source: Hollywood Reporter